As property prices continue to rise and people embrace apartment living, property developers are trying to find way to include as many functions into as little space as possible. After bringing the concept of Murphy’s wall beds into Dubai back in 2004, Casa-Elan furniture manufacturer is now pushing out across the region. It has recently set up an office in Oman and is now looking for retail dealers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

“With an expansion of hotels and hotel serviced apartments in particular, we are now getting a lot of inquiries from Qatar. The hotel apartments are getting smaller and developers and hotels operators want to utilise space as much as possible. With the wall beds, hotel developers are obviously saving money as they are getting a king size bed, a sofa, shelves and a table — all in one,” explains Ratna Sharma, founder of Casa-Elan.

The Casa-Elan library bed takes up 2m2 of floor space in a room when closed and gives 9m2 of extra storage space.

According to Sharma, these wall units feature proper beds with hotel-quality mattresses and fold up into the wall leaving additional space to move around. They can have extra shelving and storage built within and around them or can have a sofa attached, which remains under the bed when opened and makes the space into a living room. The mechanisms for the beds are imported while the wood work is custom made and designed by Casa-Elan to fits different clients’ needs.